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Here you will find a record of all things fiction and the thoughts generated through clear lenses. All posts older than 12/16/2013 are works of thirst-quenching fiction you should explore freely, while everything onwards becomes what has struck the bell in my brain and turned into words. Enjoy!

Thursday, February 9, 2012

On Teaching Public School (a man in front of an audience)

Let's review here, we're getting paid less than strippers to take care of ALL the kids. Y'all think being a parent is hard with your one or two--try hundreds, getting them in batches of thirty-fuck-five at a time (and many of us *do* have our own little beasts waiting for our tired carcass to come through the door). We gotta teach them morals, discipline, how their pee-pees work, and what do you have to do? Feed 'em? We gotta do this all education business with no inherent control outside of detention, which honestly, some kids like. And we don't just teach kids, we teach shitty kids too. *All* the shitty kids. All *your* shitty kids. These 'things' aren't our fault! But they become our problem. We must take responsibility for them, without laying a hand on them, and explain to the police officer why why all the sulfur tablets from chem went missing and the whole school smells like rat anus.
We must work without using pleasant distractions to keep them entertained like legos, video games, or booze. We public servants are supposed to keep your kids out of trouble--basically stop them from being like all of you when you were kids--and here's the real kick in the nads, right: you expect us to teach them *languages,* and sciences, and fuckin' math! "Hey! You boys playing 'dick-smack' in the back, shut you're pie-holes and listen to my half-high rant about the numerous applications of the quadratic equation! I know you've never left this state, but let's learn what the USSR stood for--so what if it doesn't exist anymore? You are *totally* going to need this when you're flipping burgers and digging ditches later in life!" Shit, YOU can't even sit through lectures on this crap without whipping out your iPhone and text messaging a picture of your pap smear to your grandma. And you expect US to teach KIDS this? Try to get a monkey to wrap it's equally-capable brain around electrolysis and all you'll get is a fist-flung lesson in the magic digestion and alternative bio-friendly sustainable fertilizers.
And if they fail miserably, skip school and don't do their work--it's the teachers. "Let's get the PTA together and talk about how badly the teachers are dealing with the demons of our loins." And then you, you "parents," have the audacity, to tell us, how to do *our* jobs. Because lord knows being a soccer-mom part-time-floral-shop-attendant gives you great credentials to critique the work of us war-hardened veterans of scholastic combat. I have a really fancy-ass fake gold-leafed piece of paper from a university you've never heard of saying I know what I'm doing, at least that's *something.* What do you have? Wistful memories of a trip to Tahiti fourteen years ago when you came back with extra baggage in your belly? Is granting the 'miracle of life' reason enough to tell us why we don't know how to do the jobs we were trained for? Give us funding for a few good pitchforks and perhaps we could keep them in line.
So you say if we can't handle a kid--because more likely than anything they're just bored--then they need to go talk to the principal? The principal? Have you *seen* that guy? The principal… is insane. He's been here the longest! He's has to put up with shitty kids for generations! Hell, he probably had to put up with you! And if we bring your pierced-up, blinged-up, drugged-up, mental-apocalypse of child crying violence and suicide-disease into his office you will never see the elderly move faster. With such speed he will call solo meetings in which he may not be disturbed for days. The reality of the situation is that these are naps, but really they're more like self-induced escapes from the morbid pain of his own reality. He's had a full head of white hair since he was *42*. He farts loudly and sometimes hums "It's A Small World After All" for hours at a time, and we only hope to be as sane as him by the time we reach the age of retirement--you know, like around 74. And you know what? We don't question Mr. Principal. We only hope to have our heads less scrambled than his, but we knew we were all doomed the first day of setting foot into the realm of public education.
Between staff cuts and stagnant non-reception pay raises, I have half a mind to join Buzz and Zed and Christalaquicia flipping them burgers, because at least I'd not have to worry about homework. Despite being saddled with the burden of *educating the next generation of the country we all live in,* you know, the generation of people that will be responsible for the caretaking of both your future saggy ol' ass *and mine,* teachers are marginalized and under supported, criticized and ignored. Because, you know, the apocalypse has gotta be coming sometime and the future of a species refusing to acknowledge a problem this size is pretty much already forfeit, as we await the true 'superior race' to descend from space and turn humans into organ cattle--which they will be capable enough and smart enough to do BECAUSE THEY ACTUALLY GAVE TWO STEAMING SPACE SHITS ABOUT EDUCATION. Excuse the heavy scat, but with education in the shitter and me crying in the stalls right beside my students at school, I've been reduced to this, to saying these things in front of all of you, in blind hope that someday it might change. This country spends four times as much on defense over education. If you flipped that statistic around, we might not need defense anymore. Why can't we just be Sweden? Fuck stripping, I should have been a S/M porn star. At least then someone could get a ride out of the pain I and all other educators shall go through.

1 comment:

Bravo, Mr. Writer.It is easy to forget how bad public educators have it from way up here in higher ed where instructors don't have time to *teach* on account of making sure all of their students are efficiently providing low-cost labor.

About

Writer writing from somewhere in Japan. I make worlds in my spare time and offer *the correct answer* on all issues social, political, and otherwise. My passion is fiction and poetry, which you will find by the bucket in older entries. Now, read on, intrepid sojourner!
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TO EXPLORE the two worlds I am in the process of weaving, *got to the links below* and then see if you can find out how they are linked!